Tag Archives: Florida

Faux Retirement Suits Me

May 26, 2023 Sharon Leave a comment

As I prepare to move to Thailand, I’m camped out at our house in The Villages, a 55+ community in central Florida. When my parents moved here, we bought this place as a vacation rental while abroad and as our home base when visiting the States.

The only other time I’ve spent more than a few weeks here was during the pandemic. I had come from Chile to see my mom and got stuck here. Although Florida was pretending Covid didn’t exist, I continued to follow Chile’s approach: strict social distancing, wearing a mask, and staying home. So it wasn’t a whole lot of fun.

This time, I’m accessing my inner joiner. I love classes, clubs, and community events, and there is no shortage of such things in this surreal Disneyland for grown-ups. The Parks and Recreation list of clubs is 204 pages long. Two hundred and four pages!

So far, I’ve joined a weekly ladies coffee klatsch, a book club, and a hiking group, and I reached out to the organizer of a club for international teachers (which won’t meet again till September, unfortunately).

I’ve had great conversations with ladies over coffee and even met a Chilena! The book club discussed One Italian Summer, by Rebecca Serle. Even though most of us found it to be fluffy and unsatisfying, I was so grateful to talk books with a bunch of smart women. The weekly hikes provide so much of what I’ve been craving: social interaction, nature, and group exercise. Here’s a shot of us at Pruitt Trail, which included a section on a levy created when Florida toyed with digging a barge canal connecting the Gulf of Mexico with the Atlantic Ocean. (Learn more about that here.)

Perusing the Parks and Rec list, I discovered more groups for people who share my interests: expat life, plant-based diet, meditation, ukulele, and all kinds of theatre. There are heaps of exercise classes, including mainstream options such as yoga, pilates, weight lifting, and cardio fitness, as well as kookier offerings like cardio drumming, hula hoop workout, dance party, and body groove. Yes, please!

What’s more, that Parks and Rec list reflects just a sliver of the lifestyle pie served up daily.

If you’ve seen the Netflix documentary about The Villages, you’re probably snickering at my enthusiasm. Yes, it’s a pretty darn homogenous community. Sure, I’m a blue dot in a dramatically red state. Yep, there is a LOT of partying among some of this crowd. As for the colored loofahs accenting the golf cart antennae, many Villagers have insisted to me that it’s just to help them find their vehicles in the parking lot. Still, the reputation persists, and some people like to play into it.

One lady posted this on Facebook with (a) the loofah guide that gets everyone’s blood pumping and (b) a more realistic guide.

I’ve seen my share of drunken revelry at the nightly outdoor concerts, but more often than that, I’ve encountered people with interesting life stories making the most of their golden years.

Since finding a moth infestation in our storage unit, I’ve had much less time for fun. The space is stuffed like a 3-D Tetris game with everything we had at our lake house in Michigan and at our apartment in Chile. I’m hoping to unpack enough to solve the moth problem and prepare for a garage sale next month.

When I’m not digging through boxes, I ride my bike about 12 miles each morning, take long walks, drive my 98-year-old neighbor to her appointments, hang out with my mom (who lives right down the street), and meet up with lovely locals. I know it’s too early to dream of retirement, but at least I know I’ll be good at it.

Florida, Midlife Crisis Edition

The Manure Meditation … and Other Reflections on my Self-Care Journey

October 23, 2022 Sharon 1 Comment

I almost hate to tell you how wonderful my mornings are.

My cat Ella wakes me up around 4:30 a.m. Hold on … that part is most decidedly not wonderful. It gets better.

I go back to sleep till about 6. Then I get up, make a cup of tea, and crawl back into bed to read for a whole hour. At 7, I set aside my kindle, sit cross-legged at the head of my bed, open the Calm app on my phone, and click on a short guided meditation.

Afterwards, I head to the barn, where the minis greet me with the most appreciative whinnies. They know breakfast is coming. Once they’re fed, I grab the broom, pitchfork, shovel, and wheelbarrow and get to work.

As I sweep the stalls, clean up manure, scrub water buckets, and shovel sand back into the holes dug by barn dogs Zeus and Athena, I try to practice what I learned in my morning meditation.

I pause and lean on the spade handle to watch the gray dawn dissipate in the rising sun. I notice and feel gratitude for a sapphire sky with one puffy cloud, a pasture full of white ibis aerating the grass, a bright watercolor grasshopper resting on a fence post, an expansive V of honking geese soaring overhead, or the smell of pine when I crunch through the trees. Instead of letting my mind wander and speculate about the future, I try to focus on the moment, finding delight in the world around me. Of course, the challenge is to hold on to that feeling for the rest of the day.

Every morning, something makes me laugh. Zeus, a lumbering behemoth of an Anatolian shepherd, begs for a belly scratch. Aprille, one of the mini mares, sticks her face in front of the leaf blower, tossing her long mane like a fashion model. Mischa, the female Great Dane, transforms into a spindly kangaroo, bouncing with excitement at the prospect of going outside.

As for exercise, the barn is my gym. I have lost 20 pounds and developed abs and never-before-seen biceps. I don’t exactly feel like me, but I like it.

I never eat out because … well … money and the lack thereof. Instead, I cook nutritious, vegetarian soups and other freezable meals, eat farm fresh eggs from a lady in the neighborhood, and load up on veggies from a nearby produce stand. (That said, I recently discovered that you can buy single pieces of cake at the supermarket!)

The latest glorious addition to my self-care routine is yoga. Just across the dirt road behind the farm, I discovered an oasis: Wind Horse Yoga. Three days a week, I wander through my gate to join a lovely little yoga community, where owner Knan and her four dogs create a climate of fellowship and zen. Instead of a bell or chime at the end of practice, we are roused from savasana by wet noses and wagging tails.

Ankle kisses mark the end of yoga class.

Working full time, I dabbled inconsistently with self care. I took a mindfulness course and embraced meditation wholeheartedly, but life’s commitments soon pushed that practice to the back burner. I downloaded workout apps, joined gyms, attended fitness classes, and tried to maintain a regular schedule of exercise off and on over the years. I became a vegetarian and tried to eat healthfully; it’s just that cooking is so time-consuming and falafel wraps with garlic sauce delivered to my door are so delicious and convenient. My point is that I basically failed at self care for most of my adult life.

These days, I’m blissfully unemployed, and my college classes are challenging but not overtaxing. This midlife crisis or “gap year” or whatever it is has handed me the most wonderful and unexpected gift: time to take care of myself, mentally and physically.

It didn’t start out that way.

For the first six weeks, I cried a lot. If I wasn’t crying, I was on the brink of tears. I barely made it through my classes before falling apart in my car on the way home. Everything triggered tears, and I didn’t even fully understand what I was sniffling about. The tiniest frustration or inconvenience overwhelmed me. While working around the barn, my mind zipped and zoomed in all kinds of crazy directions, looping back and getting lost. Looking back, I realize I was processing a great deal of change: giving up my career, sending my husband halfway around the world, not having an income, living in a small apartment, and caring for so many living beings who wanted my attention all the dang time.

Those changes continue to trigger moments of panic, confusion, and anxiety. I realize this gift of time has an expiration date, and to be honest, sometimes visualizing where this is all going sends me on a downward spiral. No, it’s not nirvana, but every day I try to appreciate this opportunity to slow down, learn, and grow.

Who would have thought I would find mindfulness in manure?

Peace in a pitchfork?

Focus in farm work?

Gratitude in the grind?

Comfort in cat litter?

No, I went too far with that.

Ommm…

I found this at a garage sale today!

Florida, Midlife Crisis Edition

College Classes + Miniature Tutors = Steep Learning Curve

October 16, 2022 Sharon 1 Comment

After two decades of learning and growing as an educator, I feel quite confident in front of a classroom. Presently immersed in something totally new and unfamiliar, I am beginning to realize how much I took that expertise for granted. Developing a solid skillset takes time, patience, and humility. Why did I think I could jump right in to the horse world like a pro?

The amount of learning my poor old brain absorbs each day, both in my classes and at the farm, makes my eyes twitch. Book learning and lectures frequently raise more questions than they answer. I latch on to some random concept and lose myself in a digital scavenger hunt on that topic, such as when we studied the circulatory system and I got fixated on the size of a horse’s heart. Human hearts weigh about 10 ounces. The heart of an average 1,000-pound horse? 10 pounds. And remember racing legend Secretariat? His heart was reportedly a whopping 21 pounds! So there’s a good hour I can’t get back.

Reviewing with a model before dissecting the horse heart.

The minis also teach me a lesson every day. These two guys, Timmy and TJ, are among my most dedicated teachers.

They seem determined to trick me into a variety of rookie mistakes. TJ (on the right) is a rapscallion of a gelding with a strong sense of entitlement and crazy eyes. Timmy is TJ’s dad, the only stallion in the little herd. He is generally sweet and gentle, but TJ brings out his naughty side.

Every morning, when I clean the barn, they follow me and intentionally block my path. I keep telling them, “The sooner you let me sweep out this sand, the sooner I can feed you!” Yet they persist. Here’s one example of their determination.

After all this time, I had the brainstorm yesterday of shutting myself in the stalls. Shoulder-high doors lead from the barn aisle to the stalls, and metal gates lead from the stalls out to the sandy paddock. The horses roam freely in and out of the paddock but have no access to the barn’s interior.

TJ and Timmy glared at me through the gate while I efficiently swept out the sand and loose hay. When I opened the gate, they rushed in, and I quickly shut myself in the neighboring stall. Smug with this new power, I forgot to latch the door from the first stall into the barn, and those two made a break for it. Before I could stop them, they gleefully knocked over a bucket of pellets and scarfed down a few bites. Touché, little men. Lesson learned.

Later in the day, it was bath time. Timmy loves to hang out in the water mister until he is soaking wet, and then he rolls in the sand. He was filthy, and his tail was matted with poo and sticks from the field. I tied him up and hosed him down before getting to work with shampoo, sponge, a rubber curry mitt, and a comb. Afterwards, I used a mystical concoction called Cowboy Magic to detangle his mane and tail. He was so handsome!

And then he did this. I think I heard TJ egging him on.

When I texted their owner, she wrote, “That’s why we leave them in the stall until they dry off.” Well, rats. Another lesson learned.

Although my eyes ache from the pressure of my rapidly growing brain, I love this stuff. I may not reach expert status as quickly as I had hoped, but for now, I am focusing on the journey instead of the destination.

Midlife Crisis Edition

The Guide … er … Horse Hog is Back

October 9, 2022 Sharon Leave a comment

It’s been awhile. (Insert sound effect of long, dramatic sigh.) I just haven’t had much to write about. No, that’s not true. I just haven’t had the urge to write.

I remember traveling to incredible places and feeling eager to share stories about my adventures. On some of my favorite journeys, I spent the morning exploring with Tony, and then I hunkered down in the afternoon to write. Stupid covid! Not only did the pandemic limit our travel, it also sucked the joy out of my daily life to the point that I didn’t even care about documenting it. In fact, I found myself struggling to care about anything.

We felt lucky to live in Chile during the first two years of the pandemic. The government rolled out a plan with free, easily accessible vaccines and a set of rules for social distancing that fluctuated depending on the number of reported cases. Some weeks we were in full lockdown; other times, we could go outside during designated hours but only to exercise. When the number of new cases dropped, the restrictions eased. Everyone watched the “paso a paso” website religiously. Would we have to wear masks outside this week? Could a group of us sit together on a restaurant terrace? Would our classes be live or online? We definitely felt safe, and I’m grateful for that. However, the constant uncertainty took its toll.

This wasn’t the way middle school was supposed to be, and some of my kids felt robbed. I don’t know which came first: my apathy or theirs. Regardless, we seemed to feed on each other’s gloominess. I tried to put on a happy face and stay upbeat, but I know I failed. I still don’t know how some people took it all in stride while I couldn’t. I can’t say why other teachers showed grit and resilience, and I didn’t. Looking back, I can admit it really wasn’t that bad. We were healthy. We had jobs. Nobody close to us was hit hard by covid. Nevertheless, by the second semester of the 2020-21 school year, I found myself googling alternate career paths.

It was kind of funny really. At one point, I was ready to apply at Colonial Williamsburg to be an interpreter. I love history, and I love acting. It sounded like my dream job! Until I read further down the job description, where it clarified the historical person I would be depicting was a black, male, Baptist preacher. So much for that plan. Then I got excited about being a tour guide at the Biltmore in North Carolina. They were looking for someone to dress in costume, ride in a horse-drawn carriage, and share stories with tourists. History, acting, and horses! Yes, please! Until I realized the job paid minimum wage. I have been out of the United States for a long time, so at first I actually thought that was feasible. It wasn’t.

Eventually, I narrowed my search to jobs with horses, using wine-inspired search parameters such as: “jobs with horses that pay well without a lot of additional education.” After many visits down that rabbit hole, I had a few epiphanies. (1) I wanted to go back to school. (2) We own a house in Florida where I could live. (3) It turns out there’s a college not too far from our house, and that college has an Equine Studies program!

And suddenly I had a plan. I use the term “plan” loosely. I took online classes for two semesters, and my former riding instructor in Santiago let me use one of her horses for the hands-on assignments. As our final year in Chile came to a close, I felt both excited and terrified to put my “plan” into action.

The “plan” has deviated a bit. Tony wisely pointed out that if I lived in our house, then we could no longer use it as a vacation rental. As that is presently my only source of income, I thought it wise to seek out other options for housing. Luckily, I had connected with the owner of a small farm in Ocala, where I would be going to school, and she was looking for a long-term pet sitter. And that’s how I found myself living in a tiny apartment connected to a barn, caring for my cat, Ella, as well as another cat, two Anatolian shepherds who guard the barn, two Great Danes, and nine miniature horses. Although it seems I spend most of my day either feeding someone or cleaning up someone’s poop, I greatly appreciate the opportunity to practice what I’m learning on real, live (albeit tiny) horses.

What about Tony? For a minute, he contemplated pursuing his own dream of studying luthiery, the art of building and repairing stringed instruments. However, when a friend reached out with a job for him in Bangkok, he took it. Yes, Tony is living in Bangkok. Without me. I alternate between bouts of debilitating jealousy and overwhelming relief that I don’t have to write lesson plans or attend meetings. We talk every day with no idea where this is all going.

I’ve lived at the farm for 10 weeks, and I’m not going to lie. I kind of miss the international lifestyle. I miss the cadre of automatic friends in your “newbie” group when you start at a new school. I miss hitting the road on the weekend to visit a beach, historical site, cultural attraction, or even another country. I miss teaching a class full of kids from all over the world. I’m not 100% sure I’m ready to give that up forever. For now, though, I want to focus on finding my joy again.

Every day, I learn something absolutely fascinating. Did you know horses can’t breathe through their mouths? So they can’t cough or vomit, which can be a big deal. Did you know the horse’s front legs are not attached to any other bones? They are suspended from muscles, ligaments, and tendons that connect to the body. How crazy is that? Don’t get me started on how complex their hoof is … I have a whole class just on the hoof and lower leg. Well, I could go on all day …

I hope I can document something each week about my experiences at the farm and at school. I wish I had started doing that from the beginning of this journey, but I needed to pull myself out of the apathy abyss first. I know the time will fly, and I also know my short-term memory is trashed. If I don’t write it down, it didn’t happen. Maybe I’ll even dig deep and try to document a bit about my missing year.

Time to feed the horses! And the dogs … and the cats … and myself. Stay tuned. And please send good vibes as I navigate so much newness.

Pandemic Diary - The Lost Year

Pandemic Diary – A Year in a Nutshell

July 20, 2021 Sharon 1 Comment

Day 4 of hotel quarantine here in Santiago, Chile. They brought our breakfast coffee at 11 a.m., by which time I was ready to launch myself out the window. We get sprung tomorrow, but then we have to do five more days of quarantine at our apartment. Apparently, the government makes unscheduled visits to make sure you’re home.

The whole last year has been a blur, but I looked over photos, messages, and Facebook to try to resurrect my life. Here goes:

The second semester of our 2019-20 school year was nuts. Covid arrived on March 3, 2020, and our last day of school in person was March 16.

Here’s an example of what teaching on Zoom looked like. This was my advisory, a group of 8th graders. Notice only four showed their faces enough to be recognized. (I blocked them here for privacy.) We finished out the semester like this.

Our short summer break passed, and I was still in Florida. I stayed longer than planned after my flight was canceled and I realized school would start on Zoom because of Chile’s lockdown. I rarely left my house, filling my time with sudoku puzzles, yoga, learning ukulele, and studying Spanish. My mom popped over for happy hour on my back porch most evenings. I also visited my sister, Megan, in Destin, when my other sister, Kate, drove with her kids from Michigan for the July 4th weekend.

I launched an English teaching project as part of Heart for Venezuela, a foundation started by teachers at my school to help Venezuelan immigrants settle in Chile. My program evolved into a high school club, where I train Nido High School students how to teach English and then match them with children from our Venezuelan families. I thought we might get 5-10 volunteers, but it quickly exploded. Soon I was working with around 50 students! This was, without a doubt, the most rewarding experience of the last year.

I returned to Chile August 30 and reunited with Tony and our cat, Ella. I got out of quarantine on Sept. 14, but Chile’s on-and-off lockdowns continued. In July, the country had adopted an approach called “Paso a Paso.” It assigned each communa a phase that determined how open it could be. For example, Phase 1 was full quarantine. Phase 2 offered more freedoms, but we still couldn’t travel to other regions of Chile, and we had evening and weekend curfews. And so on.

At this point in the pandemic, it felt like an experiment that would run its course, and then life would get back to normal. We chuckled at memes like this:

We fashioned homemade masks, and mostly stayed home. We stood in line to get in to the supermarket and laughed about how we had plenty of toilet paper here in Chile but very little meat. (Chileans love their asados!) The front desk of our apartment was roped off. I joined the throngs learning how to bake bread (a couple fails, but eventually it worked).

In November, assuming we would return to school in person before the end of the semester (we didn’t), Nido issued masks and face shields. We joked around with them. It all felt so unreal.

For entertainment, we met friends for socially distanced outdoor and/or Zoom happy hours and book clubs, went on walks in town and hikes in the countryside, and watched a lot of Netflix.

On the first anniversary of my father’s death, I took the day off work and headed to a nature sanctuary in the Andes foothills. I hiked for a few hours and later rolled out my yoga mat next to a stream, where I also ate lunch, read, and took a little nap. I guess I thought my dad would manifest as a hawk or even a lizard. I was hoping for a sign that he was nearby. I even shouted for him from the top of a deserted hill. Nada. Anyway, it was rejuvenating to get outside and stash my mask for the day in honor of my dad.

I got out of town for two weekends in November: first, a ladies wine escape, and then Thanksgiving at the beach.

The weekend of Nov. 14, seven of us headed to an incredible Airbnb in one of Chile’s wine regions, Santa Cruz. The sprawling home sat adjacent to a small reservoir surrounded by idyllic farmland. We took turns making meals, and everyone brought their A-game to the kitchen. (Disclaimer: I only contributed a cheese platter.) We also practiced yoga, had a raucous dance party, sipped wine on the terrace, and visited three wineries: Vino Bello, Montes, and Laura Hartwig. It was wonderful to escape from the city, but I felt a degree of social anxiety brought on by so much uncertainty related to the pandemic.

For the long Thanksgiving weekend, Tony and I traveled to Matanzas, which combined many of my favorite things: the beach, horses, yoga, wine, and friends. We got an Airbnb with our frequent travel partners, Stella and Ian, and their girls. Always a lovely time with that clan.

In December, we moved to a different Santiago apartment, owned by former Nido teachers Pi and Laura, who had started teaching at a school in Panama. Our new place is smaller, but bright and cozy with a much shorter commute to school. In addition, it’s right at the base of Cerro San Cristobal, a part of the Andes foothills with a huge city park featuring lots of hiking and biking trails. In the other direction, we have easy access to fun parts of the city (during normal times) with restaurants, bars, shops, museums, markets, and more. The only drawback is our tiny parking space, wedged between a wall and a neighbor’s SUV. Tony and I have each broken a taillight learning to navigate this parking garage.

For the semester break, Tony and I traveled to Florida for two weeks, leaving Ella in the care of one of Tony’s former students, Tami. Christmas was lame. No family, no tree, no presents, no fancy meal. I don’t even remember how we spent the day. My mom was invited to a friend’s house for dinner, and my sister Megan was entertaining her in-laws. A few days later, however, we drove to Destin to hang out with Meg’s family, which made up for the boring start of our vacation.

My mom’s backyard becomes a sanctuary for migrating birds during the rainy season.

Back in Chile, we took off for another beach outing with Stella and Ian, not realizing at the time that it would be our last trip together, thanks to Covid. The road in and out of Puertocillo essentially involved driving down a cliff face on rutted dirt roads and hairpin curves. Our little Toyota barely survived the journey and ultimately couldn’t handle the final approach to our Airbnb, which was perched at the top of a steep hill. We had to park at the bottom and march like sherpas with our stuff up to the house.

During the school year, we taught on Zoom, in a hybrid model (Room & Zoom at the same time), and in person with all kids present. However, I’ve lost track of how long we used each model. All I know is that it was exhausting. Here’s a shot of an outdoor assembly during our in-person stint:

The day after my birthday, I got my first Covid vaccine, which was a huge relief. A month later, I was fully vaccinated.

At international schools, the end of the school year is bittersweet. We celebrate the year’s accomplishments and look forward to the upcoming vacation, but we also have to say good-bye to friends moving on to other adventures. Usually, the calendar fills up with farewell parties, weekend get-aways, and other special events. Thanks to Covid, this year was different. I didn’t even get to say good-bye to some departing friends.

I attended one fiesta clandestina for Genevieve, a friend who is moving to Kuwait.

And we managed to plan one last ladies weekend for Stella before she and her family moved to Morocco. Nestled in the mountains next to a river, our Airbnb was like a salve for my soul. The caretaker, Francisco, lived in a small house on the property with a horse, a dog, and a coop full of chickens. My heart soared each time he let the chickens loose to run around the property scratching for bugs. One day, Francisco led us on a path crunchy with autumn leaves to reach a paved trail up the hill. He also built a big fire for us outside at night. Otherwise, we hung out, ate, drank, read, danced, and napped.

The Support Services team (EAL and Learning Support) also had a gathering for Stella. It’s always hard when a great colleague decides to leave, but it’s even harder when that colleague is also a great friend.

Well, that was supposed to be a year in a nutshell, but it was a much bigger nut than I had anticipated.

On the Road

Summer Break Part one: Florida

February 16, 2020 Sharon Leave a comment

School wrapped up the first semester on Dec. 20, and we immediately flew to the States to spend Christmas with my family. I had scheduled three weeks in Florida because I assumed my mother would need help. In the week after my father died, I felt so useful: organizing her paperwork, answering phone calls, contacting friends and family with the sad news, and so on. I figured I would pick up where I had left off a month ago. We crossed paths with our pet sitters at the Santiago Airport, handed over the keys and a few bits of information about caring for Ella, and then we were off.

As always, I had a blast hanging out with my sisters and their families. Megan had decked out her home near Destin, FL, in full holiday regalia, including three Christmas trees. Kate and her family drove from Michigan with a van full of presents. My brother Mike and his family sat this one out, celebrating with out-of-town friends at their home in Abu Dhabi. My mom arrived on Christmas Eve. Of course, we had many melancholy moments, missing my dad. His absence was everywhere. With a bunch of little kids at Christmas, though, you have to keep a happy face. Kind of a blessing.

Megan and Britt had the most festive house in the neighborhood.

We all went to the movies. Some of us saw “Star Wars”; some saw “Frozen 2.” Posing outside the theater…

We caught Santa setting up the Magnatiles!

I was a little bummed that Tony and I had failed to gear up in anticipation of the annual Dickinson Family Nerf War. I couldn’t find any weapons from past years, and I didn’t want to invest in more plastic junk. I begged my sister Kate to let us borrow some of her artillery. Her three boys easily own enough Nerf weaponry to outfit the actual U.S. Army. “We totally forgot to bring it,” she said. “We were in such a rush to pack the van and get down here!”

Turns out Megan also dropped the ball. She had purchased Nerf guns with incompatible bullets. Doh!

Christmas morning, we enjoyed the usual traditions: Kids wait upstairs until adults check to see whether Santa came. Play with stocking stuffers and eat cinnamon rolls. Open presents. On our “journey to zero waste,” Tony and I had requested no gifts this year. I tried to find plastic-free options for our presents to everyone else. I made lotion bars and bought homemade soaps for the adults, and I gave the kids photo puzzles made on the Shutterfly website.

At one point, the living room became eerily quiet. Suddenly, Kate’s whole family came barreling down the stairs in full attack mode, outfitted with helmets, face masks, cardboard shields, and Nerf weapons. I shouted out, “Embedded journalist! Hold your fire!” and ducked behind the kitchen island. So obviously, Kate had lied about forgetting the Nerf gear. Not only that, Nico had written an extremely detailed three-page battle plan with roles for each member of his family. It opened with:

After everyone is done opening presents, we run upstairs in the closet and get ready. This way, we already have the top floor cleared out as we make our way downstairs in the line going: Nico (shieldman), Dad (sheildman), Paul (gunman), Jack (gunman), and Mom (gunner) makes sure that we are not being ambushed from behind.

There’s even a diagram for clarification.

Classic.

Family Christmas Nerf War 2020

Megan wears protection while baking cinnamon rolls.

The only way to top an epic Nerf war is with a trip to the beach. So that’s what we did. Henderson State Park’s beach is practically perfect with baby powder sand and crystal clear water (too cold for me at this time of year, but the kids jumped right in).

We had so much fun, we went back the next day.

Tony and I had promised to take the kids overnight, and Megan and Britt were looking forward to a romantic get-away. However, my mom was eager to get home, so Tony and I drove with her back to the Villages a few days earlier than planned.

Our rental property was free for the week, and we settled in, expecting to spend much of our time helping out at mom’s house. Turns out she didn’t really want or need help. Distracting herself from my father’s absence, she launched several big projects, including remodeling the master bedroom and bath. Realizing she and the workmen had things under control, and knowing we would have to check in to a hotel at the end of the week when our renters arrived, we decided to skip town again. Tony took a shuttle to the airport, rented a car, and picked me up to head back to Megan’s house. We figured we could offer to babysit for that get-away they wanted.

During the six-hour drive, I checked my messages using free wifi at a rest stop. Megan had texted, “Sha sha! I hope u get this, we booked our get-away room for tonight so we might leave the kids at the neighbors till u get here so we can spend a little extra time at the resort.” Ha! She didn’t even wait till we got there.

While I appreciate having the whole family together, there’s something particularly special about getting my lovebugs all to myself. No cousins to distract them. No siblings to distract me. We played Pokemon Monopoly and Sequence, assembled Annesley’s puzzle, read bunches of books, colored, ran around outside, and laughed a lot.

One day when Britt was at work, Megan took us all to Seaside, a quaint beach town where the movie “The Truman Show” was filmed. We had brought the kids’ bikes, and we rented some for the adults. We cycled around a lovely lake and through the quiet lanes lined with picturesque cottages.

After lunch, we strolled over to the beach, just planning to take a peek. As if. Will and Annesley immediately started playing in the sand and splashing in the water. Seriously, how could they resist?

One highlight of this visit was watching the kids at karate class. The sensei was brilliant. I wish I had his classroom management skills. And I felt super proud of my munchkins.

Before heading back to Santiago, we popped by for one last visit with my mom. She let me take one of my dad’s ukuleles, which was a nice distraction when we got stranded in Atlanta overnight.

Back in Chile, I spent much of my time dealing with time-consuming, Spanish-mandatory frustrations: A large sum of our money was “missing” after an issue with a mobile deposit. We had to get our vacuum repaired. Someone stole the side mirrors off my car while I was at an appointment. Two of our balcony doors were broken and wouldn’t close. In addition, our house in Michigan needs more foundation work before we put in on the market again, so I was on skype with contractors and emailing with my realtor.

Still, we made time for a little fun. We saw the movie, “Yesterday,” at a free screening in the park by our house. I met up with a couple friends. We ate out (way too much!). The rest of the time, I could be found reading or napping on the balcony.

I really couldn’t complain … especially when I could look forward to our upcoming trip to Ilha Grande in Brazil!

On the Road

Easter Bunny brings mini family reunion to Florida

May 21, 2018 Sharon Leave a comment

Tony and I have lived abroad for 17 years, and without a doubt, the hardest part for me is the lack of contact time with my parents, siblings, and seven adorable nephews and nieces. We chose this lifestyle to see the world, immerse ourselves in different cultures, and broaden our perspectives. So when a school break comes along, I grapple with a self-imposed guilt-ridden juggling act: Go home? Explore a new place?

The week before Easter, I chose to go home. I took a few personal days, combined it with our two days off school, and headed to Florida. I thought I would enjoy a little quiet time with my parents and get the scoop on my dad’s illness. That happened – a bit – but thanks to school holidays around the world, my visit turned into a mini-reunion.

My sister Kate brought her three boys from Michigan, and my brother Mike and his wife, Summer, traveled from Korea with their two kids. Our other sister Megan had just wrapped up a Florida trip, so she couldn’t justify joining us, unfortunately.

With live music in the town square every night, the younger kids danced their hearts out. The older ones are just starting to get embarrassed by their family, so they mostly sat out.

Max and my mom boogie.

This is my new go-to happy video. Jack was the life of the party.

We spent a day at the club pool, where my face hurt from laughing at the shenanigans of these silly cousins.

Max celebrated his fourth birthday with a pool party at the hotel. Such a cutie.

One night, I sent the other adults out to dinner while I hung out with the younger crowd at the hotel. It started to get a little out of control…

… so I turned it into a dance party! Each kid had to get up and teach us a dance move. Then we put it all together.

I was flying out Saturday afternoon, so Easter came a little early. The littlies colored eggs, and the next day they arrived at my parents’ house to find the Easter Bunny had hidden candy-filled eggs around the yard.

How is it I didn’t take a family photo? Sigh… As I mentioned, this kind of gathering doesn’t happen very often. This is the best I can offer. My nephew Paul kept “flossing,” a dance that literally every third grader in the freakin’ world is doing these days. So we made this video.

My dad and I spent one day together while the rest of the crew took off for a gator park. I took him to a doctor’s appointment, we ran a few errands, and we ate lunch at Sweet Tomatoes (always a treat!). With our loud, rambunctious family, he often struggles get a word in, so I appreciated this quiet time to catch up.

He and I launched a project to scan old photos. It’s a tedious, time-consuming process, but it was fun to reminisce about my own childhood and hear my parents’ familiar stories about their youth. I was going to post some of my favorites, but then I spent another hour or so sorting through them, getting lost in memories. I’ll just wrap up with this pic of chubby one-year old me.

Back in Chile, my heart aches already. There’s never enough time with that gang.

On the Road

A very villages Christmas

January 7, 2016 Sharon Leave a comment

This is our 15th year living overseas and only the second time we’ve returned to the States for Christmas. Winter break is our longest vacation from school, so we usually want to take that time to check out exotic destinations, explore unfamiliar sites, engage with interesting locals and immerse ourselves in an unfamiliar culture. Well, no need to travel internationally to meet those requirements. We hit the jackpot this year at The Villages, a retirement community that bills itself as “Florida’s Friendliest Hometown.”

My parents recently joined the snowbird set, wintering at The Villages and gushing about their new lifestyle. I wondered, what is all the fuss about?

Well, now I know: fun. The fuss is about lots and lots of fun. First of all, there’s golf galore. You can play at 12 championship courses in The Villages (including ones built by Arnold Palmer and Nancy Lopez) or tee off at countless courses nearby. Not my cup of tea, but it sure keeps a smile on my dad’s face. More up my alley, every golf course has a fantastic club with a restaurant, bar and pool. Just a short golfcart ride up the hill, my parent’s neighborhood club features a fabulous pool with a big waterfall. Ah, resort living! Can’t cope with all that relaxing? There’s literally a group or a class for every imaginable interest you may have. Wood working? Archery? Languages? Check, check, check. The Villages Lifelong Learning College offers fascinating courses and lectures on every topic you can imagine. (I’m truly disappointed to miss the lecture, “Gone With the Wind: Fact versus Fiction in Historical Memory,” which is happening Jan. 14.)

Maybe you just want to meet up with some like-minded people: from your state, college alumni, sports fans, military veterans, former expats, etc. Trust me, they are here. Maybe you’d rather just hang out with your friends and listen to live music. Well, you can do that every single night in any number of venues, including the Spanish Springs village square outside our hotel. We couldn’t believe the crowds that gathered each night to drink, dance and mingle.

One of the most attractive aspects of The Villages to me was the fact that everyone is a transplant. As someone with high “belonging needs” but with no roots anywhere, I appreciate the idea that almost everyone living here came from somewhere else. Nobody is an outsider. The weather’s not too shabby, either.

Mom at one of the village squares: Sumter Landing.

Nico and Paul splash in my parents’ country club pool.

Sunset view from my parents’ backyard.

Golf carting with some cute cargo.

So, I get it. I can totally understand why my parents gush about life down here. It’s a little weird and a little surreal, but I get it.

Tony and I stayed at the Marriott Hotel, just a short golfcart ride from my parents’ neighborhood. (They played host to my sister Kate, her husband and three boys, so it was a full house.) Jetlagged, we crashed early and rose early, so it was nice to return to the quiet hotel and enjoy sunrise walks in the fresh air.

My mom whipped up a delicious Christmas Eve dinner, although Tony and I were so exhausted we could barely stay awake for it. Christmas morning, Nico and Paul excitedly opened their presents, but little Jack flat-out refused. He threw a tantrum when Kate tried to help him rip off the paper. What a goofball!

A pretty Christmas Eve table.

Happy nephews!

Jack doesn’t want to open presents … but Tony does!

A highlight of the morning was opening the presents that Nico and Paul picked out and bought with their own money. They watched with big smiles and wide eyes, waiting for our reactions. I gushed to Nico about my fantastic charm bracelet with blinking Christmas lights, and I promised Paul I would keep my earrings in the little bedazzled orange box he gave me. It’s pretty special to see kids learn the joy of giving.

Our traditional Christmas War was a bust. (See 2012’s blog post for details on how it SHOULD play out.) Only my dad had prepared. The rest of us were sitting ducks. In our defense, Tony and I went to Target to get weapons, but the only Nerf guns they had were $25 each! Arriving in the States just a few days before Christmas, we simply didn’t have time to plan a proper strategy. I don’t know what Kate’s excuse was…

Dad’s sneak attack.

Kate had ammo but no guns. What?!

For New Year’s Eve, we partied octogenarian style! Katie Belle’s, a favorite Villages venue had undergone a facelift, and this was the unveiling – sort of a “soft opening.” The place had apparently been a raucous dance club with a nice perimeter restaurant upstairs overlooking the dance floor. Rumor has it the owners were trying to cash in on the upscale clientele attending shows at the ritzy theater across the square and wanted to create a more refined dining experience, so they remodeled. It really was lovely, and the food was great (lobster and salmon for me, thank you!).

Waiting to get in…

Me, my mom and Bev

However, we had to laugh at the timing. My parents, their friend Beverly, Tony and I joined the crowd outside Katie Belle’s for the 3:30 p.m. seating. The musical act (a sort of karaoke lounge singer, who deftly impersonated singers such as Neil Diamond, Frank Sinatra and Johnny Mathis) kicked off around 5:30. At 6:19 p.m., waiters circulated to fill our champagne glasses, and the singer started a countdown. We all shouted “Happy new year!” and kissed each other as though it were midnight. That was odd enough, but then a huge group joined hands in a circle on the dance floor to sing several patriotic songs, including “God Bless America” and “Proud to be an American.” It was like some strange cult. I told my mom, “I’m afraid they’re going to sacrifice a virgin!” and she said, “Good luck finding a virgin here!” So that was different. By 7 p.m., the lights were blaring and we were ushered out the door. Perfect for a couple of jetlagged only-barely-too-young-to-live-in-the-Villages party animals like Tony and me!

Happy New Year (6 hours early)!

It’s going to be a great year! (The newspaper article referred to The Sharon, a popular venue for theatrical and musical shows, but it was a pretty good headline to kick off 2016!)

Kate’s husband, John, is a saint. He drove with his family from Michigan to Florida, stayed for just a few days, flew back to Michigan to put in a week of work, and then flew back to Florida to drive them all home! The day they left, the Dickinsons and the Dents embarked on a Country Club Crawl. I had joked earlier in the week about having a cocktail at every club in The Villages before leaving Florida. Instead, my dad planned out an abbreviated route that took us to five country clubs. We popped in to each one, had a quick drink on the veranda, and sped off to the next one. My dad, Tony and I split beers or otherwise cheated to stay relatively sober, but my mom discovered the Malibu Bay Breeze and got one at every stop. She may have been a bit sloshed by the time we met their friends Jim and Nancy for dinner (and our last club cocktail).

Stop 1: Evans Prairie

Stop 2: Palmer Legends

Stop 3: Glenview

Stop 4: Hacienda Hills

Stop 5: Nancy Lopez
(We couldn’t remember if this was stop 4 or 5…)

During our two weeks at The Villages, we spent a lot of time eating and chatting, two of my favorite things, but we managed to fit it a few outings.

Mount Dora is a funky small town with oak-lined streets, antique shops and sidewalk cafes with intriguing names such as The Goblin Market and Pisces Rising. After a little rest at the historic Lakeside Inn, we walked to the edge of Lake Dora to board a pontoon boat for a 2-hour eco-tour with Premier Boat Tours.

Mom posing with some residents of the Lakeside Inn lobby.

Dad waiting to board the boat.

We zipped across the lake while listening to a recording about the area’s history and then slowed down for a cruise through the twisting passages of Dora Canal. Parts of the canal were residential; lucky homeowners sit on their back porches to enjoy the wildlife and tranquility among the towering cypress trees draped with Spanish moss (which we learned is neither Spanish nor moss, but rather a relative of the pineapple – crazy!).

However, backyards can be dangerous places. This alligator was sunning herself among some Christmas yard art, while her babies hung out at the nest across the canal.

Our captains shrewdly spotted and identified gators, turtles and all sorts of birds, including my favorite, the anhinga, a ubiquitous canal dweller frequently seen with its wings outstretched on the banks or in a tree. The captains explained that the anhinga dives into the water and swims to catch fish, but it doesn’t have oily feathers like ducks. If it stays underwater too long, it will get waterlogged and drown. After awhile, it has to find a safe spot to stretch out and fan its wings in the breeze until dry enough to resume hunting.

Here’s one drying out on someone’s boat.

On another day, we checked out the Ellie Schiller Homosassa Springs Wildlife State Park. From the visitor center, we took a boat ride through cypress-lined canals to the park. There, we encountered all sorts of indigenous species, from birds to foxes.

According to the Florida State Parks website:

Ellie Schiller Homosassa Springs Wildlife State park has been a tourist attraction since the early 1900s, when trains stopped to let passengers off to walk the short trail to the first-magnitude spring. The tracks ran alongside what is now Fishbowl Drive. While passengers enjoyed a view of Homosassa Spring and its myriad of fresh and saltwater fish, the train’s crew were busy loading their freight of fish, crabs, cedar and spring water aboard the Mullet Train.
The 50-acre site and surrounding 100 acres was purchased in the 1940s and was operated as a small attraction. In 1964, the Norris Development Company bought the property and expanded it as Homosassa Springs “Nature’s Own Attraction,” with an emphasis on entertainment and with a variety of exotic animals and some native species. Ivan Tors Animal Actors housed their trained animals at Homosassa Springs Attraction for several years. These animals were trained for television shows and movies. When they were not performing they were kept at Homosassa Springs. One of the most popular of these animals was Buck who was stand-in for Gentle Ben in the famous television series. Lu, a hippopotamus, was one of the Ivan Tors animals and still resides at the park after being declared an honorary citizen of the State of Florida by then Governor Lawton Chiles. Norris owned the attraction until 1978.
From 1978 until 1984, the land went through several changes in ownership. The Citrus County Commission purchased the attraction to protect it as an environmentally sensitive area until the State of Florida could purchase the property as a Florida State Park. Modern thinking about captive wildlife has influenced how the park is now managed. Both visitor safety and animal welfare are of utmost importance at Ellie Schiller Homosassa Springs Wildlife State Park.

Lu, the hippo referenced above, lives in a tank at the entrance to the park and twice put on a nasty show of projectile pooping, which attracted even nastier vultures looking for a snack. Fortunately, the park warns you to stand clear.

Speaking of poop … we encountered quite a bit during another outing to Uncle Donald’s Farm, a somewhat ghetto petting zoo/working farm not far from my parent’s neighborhood. The boys fed chickens, petted a sheep and rabbits, cuddled (and got scratched by) some farm cats, milked a goat, took a hayride (complete with sloppy cow kisses), ran through a hay maze, and climbed on old farm equipment. It was pricey and not the most polished operation, but the kids had a blast.

Oh, and of course, we went to Star Wars 3-D!

Every family gathering has its share of drama, and we were no different. Still, I felt grateful for every minute with this nutty crew. I only wish the rest of the gang could have been there.

So long, America. See you in June!

The Guide Hog

Tag Archives: Florida

Faux Retirement Suits Me

The Manure Meditation … and Other Reflections on my Self-Care Journey

College Classes + Miniature Tutors = Steep Learning Curve

The Guide … er … Horse Hog is Back

Pandemic Diary – A Year in a Nutshell

Summer Break Part one: Florida

Easter Bunny brings mini family reunion to Florida

A very villages Christmas

Adventures in Teaching and Travel